


So Many Fallen

by cassie5squared



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 07:36:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7630984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassie5squared/pseuds/cassie5squared
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emmeline and William can't ever forget their loved ones, and each resting place has its own character.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Many Fallen

**Author's Note:**

> Another prompt from the lovely Ellie.

Every graveyard has its own idiosyncracies.

The ancient churchyard on the outskirts of Inveraray, only a few minutes’ walk from the ancestral home of the Argyles, is filled with crumbling stones that date back hundreds of years. An equally ancient hedge of yew trees borders the old stone wall, providing a welcome windbreak in winter and pleasant shade in summer.

The Argyle family has a whole section to itself, in the north-eastern corner. William has become quite familiar with it in the past four or five years; he has passed by these stones marked with the Argyle crest, little symbols proclaiming their magic to all who recognise them, and names that sing of Highland history, so many times to visit the most recent member of the clan to join the silent group.

Jason’s grave is under the branches of a gnarled old yew, sheltered from the worst weather but still able to catch the sunlight. William has read the words on the stone a thousand times, and knows them by heart.

_Jason Glen Argyle_  
_13th November 1960 - 25th February 1980_  
 _Beloved son and brother._  
 _To live in the hearts of those we love is not to die._

It’s small comfort, to William. When he and Emmeline come to pay their respects, they watch their children - still toddling, but both full of giggles and mischief - exploring the quaint old churchyard, and he can’t help but wish Jason was there to get to know them. He knows full well that his oldest friend would have been the most wonderful uncle, if only he’d lived.

* * *

The wide-open field in France, dotted with trees and headstones, is filled with the fragrance of the wild flowers that grow freely here. It’s a place that was familiar to the Vance family, and where Emmeline and her mother chose to lay their loved ones to rest at the last.

For all its beauty, however, there’s an air of mourning that can’t be washed away by sweet breezes or the perfume of a thousand blossoms. Emmeline has wept into his shoulder more than once as they walk through the grass in the warmth of the late summer sun. It’s a place that brings up memories. 

The thought of her father Gaston, who treasured his baby girl and admired her courage and determination in following in his footsteps, is enough to bring a lump to her throat. When Chris, her big brother, joins the flow of memories, smiling and hugging her and always ready to heal her little accidents, the tears overflow.

They had wanted no part in the war; they had done their best to escape it; but it had hunted them down and claimed them all the same, and broken Emmeline’s heart. No matter how long she lives, nothing can ever take away that first grief.

* * *

Edward and Frieda Marshall share their eternal slumber in an airy little graveyard near Maidstone, where they spent so much of their lives together, and where their only son rests with his wife nearby. Willows have spread themselves across the churchyard, and ivy provides many of the stones with their own wreaths. 

It’s a pretty place, and one William knows as intimately as his own home; he’s come here several times a year as long as he can remember. It used to be so simple, to walk through the gate and up the familiar path, to read the epitaphs he’d been reading over and over since he was a small boy.

But now he no longer merely pays respects to the memory of a mother and father he has never really met. The only family he has ever known, the people who raised him, loved him, and taught him to be proud of who and what he is, are gone, and with them the foundations of his world.

He can sit by the hour and tell them of his own life - the wonderful woman he has married, the children that are the result, the achievements he’s made - but it is never enough to stop the tears escaping as he tells them how sorry he is that whatever he did brought the wrath and hatred of the Death Eaters down on them.

* * *

These are not the only graves they visit. There are so many loved ones who died in this war, so many names that appear in burning red on their calendars, and each and every one of them must be remembered.

_Marlene McKinnon. Edgar Bones. Gideon and Fabian Prewett. Dorcas Meadowes. Benjy Fenwick. James and Lily Potter. Caradoc Dearborn. Peter Pettigrew. Regulus Black._

Flowers and tears do not ease the pain, but they honour the courage of those who fell, and the lives they lived.

It’s enough.


End file.
